


anemone.

by yurain



Category: The Boyz (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Hanahaki Disease, I Made Myself Cry, I'm Sorry, Language of Flowers, M/M, This hurts, What Was I Thinking?, this is angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 06:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21175250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yurain/pseuds/yurain
Summary: The first time Kevin coughs petals, he only tells Eric and Jaehyun."I don't know what happened, I was coughing and-""It's Hanahaki." Jaehyun says, stopping him, then he closes his eyes. It's like he's trying to remember something. "It's called the Hanahaki Desease."





	anemone.

Kevin felt a flower blossoming slowly near his heart. And from that moment, it was always spring.

Kevin's life is nothing but an endless stream of coming and going to classes. He doesn't actually care about them, to be honest. They're just "temporary", in his life. He waits for something to happen, he waits for something to arrive, all his life is an eternal waiting for something that maybe will never come.  
This is what humans do, he often says, they wait for the apex of their life to arrive and then, when it arrives, they wait for their end. It's just a slow round of days that pass. Kevin asks himself how could humans live after their apex has come, people without dreams, people who do not like the scent of flowers.

  
Kevin really likes it. He breathes it.

  
Even him is waiting for his apex, he waits for that something that will make him say "that's what i was born for", "that's why i am here": he waits for it, helpless, sleeping on his literature books, he waits for it as people wait for spring. The usual round of seasons, the same boredom.  
He doesn't know how can people live. Himself included. Left in the world without instructions, we're all babies lost on the road of destiny, obliged to live in a world that we hate. And we grow up, not knowing where we'll go - we grow up, not knowing what will happen - we grow up, not knowing who we'll meet.

  
Kevin has met many people.

In the dorm, life flows quickly, as minutes. Jaehyun is the only one to catch each minute: he lives in history and in music, he lives knowing what he's doing. He often tells Kevin that the best way to live is not to wait for the apex, but to think you're already in your apex.

"Life is not the path you take to go to a certain place," Jaehyun sits on Kevin's unmade bed and drinks his bitter coffee, slowly, "-but it's _already that certain place_. Everyone says to follow your life, but life doesn't run away, you don't have to chase it. You're already in your life. The correct sentence would be to chase your dreams, to chase your destiny, to follow your dog that runs away. But you don't have to chase for your life, it's _your life that should chase you_."

  
Kevin nods, even if he doesn't think the same; he nods because when Jaehyun speaks, you can only nod. He sits next to him, looks at the ceiling, thinks of his words.  
You do not have to chase your life, it's your life that should chase you. But there's something wrong: Kevin would add a clarification to this sentence; not everyone wants to live their life.  
Maybe people who chase their life are actually trying to run away from it, maybe they're trying to find a new one, not everyone wants to chase their life and not everyone wants to be chased by life.

But, when Jaehyun speaks, everything seems right. So Kevin smiles.

  
Kevin, that wants to change his life, nods and smiles. The dorm would be so empty without Jaehyun, so Kevin lets him speak.

  
Kevin knows that Changmin thinks the same as him, that without Jaehyun there'll be too much silence; but he doesn't know what Changmin thinks about life: they never spoke about it, actually he doesn't want to speak about it, you can quickly guess that Changmin is happy. So he would say that life is beautiful, that each issue could be solved by some chemistry formula -that Changmin keeps on studying-, that the world is amazing.  
If only Kevin knew him, he could understand how much he's wrong. If only he could go past his smile, he would understand. Not everyone who smiles is happy and, even if Changmin never said to be sad, he is certainly not happy. He wants to change his life.  
He's often seen speaking with Eric, he sits next to him and speaks. Kevin glares at them from afar, without intruding. He can hear just a few words but, with a couple of guess and Eric's explanations, he understood something.

Changmin is the only child of a rich family and he's obliged to live a life he doesn't like; he's studying medicine and he doesn't know why: he must be a doctor, he can't choose, he can't answer, he can't raise his voice. But how can he not raise his voice, if his dream is to be an idol?

Kevin knows it, Eric knows it, everybody knows. That's his apex, that's what he's born for. Yet, he can't do it. It's like he's been walking on a path he doesn't know, he walks being pushed towards that something that seems like his life but that isn't really his life. Changmin suffers from migraines, but he smiles, he often doesn't sleep, but he smiles.

"This is what my parents want", Changmin says, sitting on the parquet, right in front of the window: light hits him from behind, he looks like an angel, as if that window was made just for the purpose of illuminating him, "-so I have to do it, or they'll be disappointed"

Eric always keeps calm when hearing these words, Kevin sometimes doesn't. He can't. So he doesn't speak to him, or he does without listening to his words, he can't stand them. "To disappoint". For Changmin, the fear of disappointing someone is stronger than the fear of dying without satisfactions.  
Kevin really can't stand it. He could never die like this, without having lived his life. He would never give away his life, even if sometimes it sucks, he still keeps each memory and each person who he met is important to him.

"My life sometimes really does suck," Kevin claims, crossing his arms on the window sill, a cigarette between his fingers, that was never lit, Eric by his side. "-but it's still my life."  
Eric doesn't answer, but he slightly nods.

Kevin doesn't remember how he met Eric, but since they've meet it's like he is his diary. Kevin speaks and speaks, explains his fears and the things he'd like to change, he speaks about Changmin and about Jaehyun and about how life sometimes sucks; Eric just listens and sips cinnamon tea, he barely answers.  
But there was an answer that Kevin could never forget.

"_That's why I want to become a psychologist_," Eric murmurs, smiling, his smile is soft and relaxed and his face seems mature, but his gestures are still the ones of a child. He searches for the right words in his minds to explain what he means, then he continues "-people always need to speak. Always. Whatever happens, people always need to tell someone what happened, people need to tell their experiences and opinions.", a pause, "But I barely felt this need, I don't like to rant only about myself. I like to hear opinions, the world, different voices and different moods. So I thought that maybe my job is to hear them."  
Kevin admires Eric, but he'll never say it. Eric is the youngest in the university, but everyone knows him: he's the hidden psychologist, that makes you feel better just by listening to you. It is really rare for him to act likke an actual psychology student, but being heard by him really makes you feel understood. He's learning a lot by listening to peoples' experiences, he's learning a lot from Kevin, he's understanding how the world turns around and how life works.

"You can study more by listening to people than by reading books," Eric said once. Then there was silence. And Kevin smiled.

The times when Kevin really smiles are rare, most of the time those are thanks to Eric. He doesn't even realize, but his gestures make Kevin smile: for some reason, Eric really makes people happy, without even speaking.

The other person that makes Kevin smile, that's Jacob. _His spring._

Jacob always smiles. He studies botany and smells like a fresh lawn, he has an older brother and when he has to study, he sits at Kevin's desk.

"Can't you study in your room?" Kevin always asks.  
"Your desk is more serious, I study better." Jacob always answers.

  
Kevin has no idea on how his desk is more serious, but he always allows him to study there. Each time Jacob goes back to his room, he leaves a post-it on that desk, "thank you for letting me study here", and each time Kevin smiles and keeps it.

He keeps each moment, each memory. He smiles, until the pain increases.

  
The first time Kevin's chest aches, he only tells Eric.

  
"There's something in my chest", he mutters, placing a hand near the heart, "and it tightens."  
Eric doesn't know what to answer. He advices him to see a doctor soon, he puts his hands on Kevin's shoulder -his hands grab strongly those small shoulders, Eric is almost afraid to break him- and he keeps on asking Kevin if he wants to go to the hospital or not. Kevin refuses insistently, turns off the lights, lies down on his bed and tries not to think about the pain.

  
The first time Kevin coughs petals, he only tells Eric and Jaehyun.  
"I don't know what happened, I was coughing and-"  
"It's Hanahaki." Jaehyun says, stopping him, he then closes his eyes. It's like he's trying to remember something. "It's called the Hanahaki Desease."

Kevin and Eric slowly sit down, waiting for Jaehyun to continue his sentence. They don't know what is happening, nor what he's going to say.

"In the Hanahaki Desease, when you're in love, you have a flower inside of you." Jaehyun tells, Eric tilts his head to the right, not knowing if it's a metaphor or not, "-if your love is unrequited, the roots of this flower could block your airways and you could die. But if your love is requited, you can spit away this flower and-"

"Do I look like the little mermaid?" Kevin says abruptly, his expressions is not slightly amazed, he crosses his arms. "Jaehyun, stop talking throught metaphors, we're not in a book."  
"Kevin, I'm telling the truth."  
"Jaehyun, please, stop it. Does it-" Kevin stands up, his voice is trembling but his tone stays low, "Does it seem normal to you?! Flowers in your chest, unrequited love, this is not - a fucking fairytale."

  
Jaehyun lowers his head. Then, he repeats, "_I'm telling the truth._"

  
The seriousness of Jaehyun scares Kevin, who steps backwards and raises a hand that slowly begins to shake. He can't believe it, this can't be true.  
"I have no reasons to lie, this is a serious matter." Jaehyun has never been so serious in his life. Kevin's hand is now shaking a lot, Eric grabs it.  
"Try to speak about it with Changmin," Eric says softly, still sitting and holding Kevin's hand "-he may know something. I've never heard about this desease either, but if you speak with him you'll know if it's true."  
Kevin nods without rising his head, he doesn't have the courage to look into Jaehyun's eyes. Flowers growing according to love, what a stupid thing. What should he do, with these flowers? It's always like this: flowers are so beautiful to look at, but when you own them you don't know where to put them. And know Kevin put them in his chest, even if he still doesn't believe in this desease. He'll speak about it with Changmin.

"Wait, Kevin-" Eric pulls one of the canadian's sleeves, his voice being extremely low "does that mean you're in love with someone?"

Right, Kevin, are you in love?

"No," he answers, and with a breath of wind, he steps out of the room.

"I've heard about it." Changmin announce, sitting at his small desk; the orange-colored curtains paint the room in the timid shades of the sunset, even in the morning, and there's something really relaxing in that small empty room, just full of books. "It does exist, but it is really rare. I would have never thought it could happen to you-"  
"It is not happening to me." Kevin rises his voice without realizing it, Changmin's eyes open wide. He murmurs a soft "sorry", goes back on browsing the pages of one of his book and shows an illustration to Kevin: it's an human body, as the ones you study in elementary school, but with some roots in the lungs, where there should be veins. In the middle, there's a flower. Instinctively, Kevin touches his chest. "That should hurt", he says.  
"Yes, and the pain keeps on increasing- if love is unrequited, the branches will tighten the lungs more and more. But there's a possible surgery." Changmin closes his book and moves his gaze to Kevin's chest, then to his eyes. "You can remove the flower surgically, but you'll forget your feelings for that person, too."

Kevin nods, thanks Changmin, says goodbye to him, steps out of the room and finally breathes.  
This can't be real.  
One name comes to his mind: Chanhee. He has to speak with him and he has to apologize deeply.

The line that divides dreams from nightmares is as thin as a needle, as the blade of a razor, and Kevin is on this line, waiting to fall. There are no other valid explanations, he's sick.  
As soon as he returns to his room, he searches on the net.

  
"Hanahaki".

Hundreds and hundreds of definitions and forums of this "hanahaki" appear before his eyes, so it's true, he says to himself, so it's true. In his chest, a flower is blooming, and that flower represents the love he feels for someone. Kevin doesn't know who could that "someone" be. He had never felt the feeling of love, or maybe he did but he doesn't recognize it, he never thought of something as "if my love is unrequited, I'd die", but apparently his body did.  
To show the love that Kevin doesn't even understand, his body turned it into petals, petals that Kevin is now coughing on his bed, they are purple and sneak into the sheets, slowly falling onto his fingers. Everything is real.  
The next time he meets Changmin, he's going to ask informations about this surgery. Afterall, he can't miss the person he loves, if he doesn't even know who that person is.  
Putting a hand on his chest, he stands up and walks by the window, so he can breathe fresh air, so he can breathe until he can feel the air coming into his lungs. In that moment, the door opens.

"_Kevin! Kev!_ Your desk sure is amazing, take a look at my grades!"  
Jacob is like an explosions of words and happiness in Kevin's room, full of purple petals, and when he notices them he leans to the floor and smiles. "These are the petals of an anemone! Where did you find those?"  
"It's a secret." Kevin puts a hand in his pocket and glares outside the window, trying to avoid Jacob's stare; he's barely breathing, if Jacob would have seen his face in that condition, he would have brought him to the hospital in the blink of an eye.

  
"_In the language of flowers, anemone means waiting_."

Jacob kneels down and watches the petals closely, Kevin turns a bit and sees him, lying between petals, and everything seems like the watercolor of a cursed painter. And the painter of that picture is Kevin himself, in his sadness, in his unrequited love.

Jacob looks up and smiles at him. Here, Kevin understands everything. A sharp pain hits his chest, he immediately clings to the window sill: it hurts, it burns, and the scent of flowers invades his lungs, it doesn't go away, the perennial spring in his body that is not going away, that tightens him.  
It hurts. Jacob gets up suddenly and holds him tight, in his eyes there's the most sincere fear he has ever felt.

  
"**_Chanhee_**", Kevin murmurs between breaths "-bring me to Chanhee."

In the right wing of the University, there's the scent of art. The most imaginative students hide there, with their hands soaked in graphite and their heads full of dreams: among these students, there is Chanhee. When Jacob knocks at his door, still holding Kevin in his arms, the art-student-expression is unparalleled. Confusion, fear, memories.

  
"Kevin?" his low voice slowly vibrates.

"Chanhee. We need to talk." and without saying anything else, Kevin enters his room and sits on his bed. "Tell me about your surgery."

"We promised not to talk about it."

"Please," Kevin's voice has never seemed this frail, Chanhee can't help looking up and letting out a sigh. "Fine.", he grumbles to himself, before sitting on the bed.

  
"Nothing to tell. I kept on threwing up peonies and peonies, it was aesthetic but it also sucked-" Chanhee shrugs, his irony is never absent, "I loved you, you didn't, I told you I was sick and you didn't believe me, I had surgery and now I don't throw up peonies anymore." He speaks as if he was reading a repice, as usual, his words are too direct and hit Kevin like a running train.

  
"I'm sorry," the canadian shyly murmurs.  
"Wow, you're actually apologizing!" Chanhee opens his mouth in a liquid "o", truly amazed. He immediately understands. "So, you got sick too and now you're finally understanding how much I was in pain?" he's not saying this to blame Kevin, or at least not completely, it's just his way to speak and to revenge.  
"I'm sorry," Kevin repeats the second time, feeling his heart in pain. He doesn't know if it's for the flowers or for the guilt.

"So, who's the lucky one?" The pink-haired-guy expression drastically changes, he's back to being the curious guy the always is, tapping slowly Kevin's shoulder. The lattest lowers his head, "I don't know", he says.  
"You'll have surgery without even knowing for who is this love?"  
"Exactly. That's better."  
"But in this way you wouldn't know if she loves you too."  
Kevin stops. For some reason, the feminine pronoun sounds strange, it's almost as if he knows it's not a girl. Maybe, deep in his heart, he knows who he loves, he just has to admit it to himself.

"I don't think it's a she."

  
"Mhh." Chanhee nods and puts a hand on his chin, thinking about each one of Kevin's friends: he tries not to think about when, years ago, the oldest said he was heterosexual and that he could have never requited his love. He prefers to be a friend now, to help him, because maybe they're really still friends. Maybe.

  
"What about Eric?"

"No." without even thinking about it, Kevin shakes his head. He could never be in love with Eric. He's something else, he's like the brother he never had, like a puppy to watch while he's growing up, he's someone too delicate, someone who doesn't know what love is and maybe will never know. Same goes for Jaehyun, he loves the world too much to be in love with just one person.

  
"Then, Jacob?"

Silence. Kevin doesn't know how to say no. He thinks about Jacob for a second: he thinks about when he smiles and the world seems to smile with him, when he studies and his adorable-concentrated expression pops on his face, about how he's always by his side, about how he always makes him smile, about how he speaks with inanimate objects, about how much he loves his brother, about how he walks, and speaks, and breahtes, he thinks about Jacob, and Cobie, and everything else.  
Chanhee noods: he understood. "Okay, I got the answer," he says smiling "-but now I have to study. Do you mind?"  
Kevin stands up, waves his hand at his "friend", goes out leaving the door open. Chanhee closes it, but before, he whispers something.

_"It's up to you on choosing what pain to feel."_

Since then, the number of petals keeps and keeps on growing, and growing, and aching.  
Eric controls Kevin daily and he makes sure the oldest is able to walk and breathe. Jaehyun is more into searching solutions and book about this desease, until one day he shows up in Kevin's room with a guy.

  
"Let me introduce you to Younghoon," Jaehyun points at him "he suffered from this disease and maybe he can explain how it went for him. For what I know, he's the only one to have suffered from it, here"  
Kevin slowly bows and invites them to enter, not saying a word about Chanhee. He didn't believe him, so he told everyone that Chanhee pretended to be sick, and now he can't say that he was really sick and that that illness was the Hanahaki.  
Younghoon sits at the desk as if he already knew that room, then tilts his head to Kevin and smiles "Everything will work fine", he says.  
"How?"  
"In both cases, everything will work fine. Both if you'll have surgery and suffer for the loss of feelings, both if you'll chose to bear the pain now. In both cases, you will handle it."  
Kevin suddenly has Chanhee's words in his mind. "It's up to you on choosing what pain to feel." There's an abrupt pain in his heart, deep down, afar from the flower. That flower is not the only thing to hurt.  
"Only a scar will remain. You will not remember that feeling and you will not miss it." Younghoon speaks slowly, quietly, he brings a hand near his heart as if there was still a flower there.  
"Who did you love?" Jaehyun walks near the two and carefully listens, even if he doesn't understand how would be being in that situation, he's still interested. "If I may ask."  
"A guy called Changmin. I fell in love with the way he smiled while he spoke, but I never believed in my feelings, so I had the surgery instantly. I don't know if I was actually in love."

A cold shiver goes down Kevin's back. Jaehyun glares at him.  
"I see." they both say, with low heads.

Kevin keeps on thinking about that last sentence: "I never believed in my feelings." But he doesn't know how to interpret it. Does he believe in his feelings for Jacob, even a bit? Does he believe in a chance? Is there any kind of hope?

  
"This is a desease for unrequited loves, so it's impossible to have a chance." Kevin speaks with Eric, trying not to think about Younghoon, he keeps a cigarettes between his fingers - and this one is lit, even if he's not smoking.

"You don't know if it's unrequited. You don't know what the other person is feeling, until you ask them. Kevin, try it." Eric holds his hand and squeezes it tightly, he doesn't want this story to end before its beginning. And he knows that if only Kevin would talk, Jacob would understand.

  
"You know, anemone means waiting." Kevin sees petals falling onto his hands, and they don't stop, and his chest aches, and burns, more and more.

  
"Kevin."

"Yesterday I thought about me being actually in love with someone. It was weird."

Eric smiles, even if he knows he shouldn't. "_The moment in which you think you may be in love with someone, you're already in love._" He puts a hand on Kevin's forehead and helps him to walk, with extreme caution he raises Kevin's weak arms and makes him sit on the bed.  
"But this hurts. Maybe this means that he doesn't love me. It hurts."

  
"You have a flower in your limbs, it's normal it hurts. It doesn't depend on love." suddenly Changmin appears, leaning against the door, a book in his hands - his small, soft hands, grasping on that heavy book, but he's not weak. He puts the book on Kevin's desk and then walks near him cautiously. He puts a hand on his chest: it's cold.  
"Jaehyun asked me to come. I'm not a doctor yet, but I know something."  
Kevin slowly opens his lips. He never saw Changmin like this before, this concentrated and with that spark in his eyes. Accidentally, without controlling his words, Kevin whispers something. "You know, maybe being a doctor fits you."  
"What?"  
"You said you were doing this because of your parents, but I think it does fit you. You help people."

Changmin can't help but smile, smile in that unique way, his smile as a medicine, as if the pain was already decreasing. "Maybe you're right."

  
"I was thinking about having surgery as soon as possible. I don't care if I'll forget these feelings, the only important thing is that I won't forget Jacob." Kevinspeaks softly, with extremely low voice, he feels the branches wrapping his vocal cords and tightening them, filling them of a dead spring.  
"This is a brave proof of love," Changmin turns the pages of his book, smiling with himself, then turns back to his friend. "But I can understand. The surgery's not expensive, there are special machines so there will be no complications. I did some research, I contacted my father and he told me about an expert. He advised me to go see him."

Kevin can not help but thank him.  
So he says it, "thank you".  
With bitter happiness, _"thank you"._

With Jacob, he has never shown himself to be afflicted. Kevin always try to act as if nothing happened, always smiling with him, always listening to him, always letting him study at his desk, always staring at him while he speaks about flowers. Nothing has changed.  
But the day before the surgery, something goes off.

  
Jacob enters Kevin's room, smiling as always and speaking about how much he loves peonies, but then - he **stops**. _Kevin's crying._

  
Tears fall down his cheeks, they hurt more than flowers, they run unperturbed and weigh, they weigh so much that he has to kneel there, in front of Jacob, crying. He had never cried like this. The blonde one doesn't understand, he quickly kneels near him, puts a hand on his cheeks and keeps on asking him what's wrong.  
Kevin would like to speak, to confess why he's crying, he would say "I'm crying because from tomorrow I'm not going to stare at you like this", but he can't. He cries also because of this. He cries because each moment they passed together will be forgotten, because in each of them he was in love with him, and with his feeling also these memories will be drifted away, and then he will lose the memory of each one of Jacob's smiles. He cries, because there's nothing else he could do, because not only when you're a child you can, he cries because the pain is too much and grows, and grows. He cries for Chanhee, for Changmin, for everything, he cries because he never really cried before.

  
He cries because he's in love with Jacob, and from tomorrow he won't be anymore.

"Kevin, what's going on?"  
"Everything is fine," he murmurs between heavy sobs, he repeatedly wipes his tears and damns how fragile he appears. He, Kevin Moon, is now crying because of love. It seems such a silly thing, for him - he will never forgive himself, if he'll remember, but right now he can't stop.  
"Are you - are you sure? You're crying, I have never seen you crying before."  
"It happens to anyone, at least once. Everything is fine, really." But yet he continue to tighten Jacob's sleeve, he thinks that if he'll leave it, he's going to leave him forever. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to leave him anymore.  
He sees Jacob smiling, he sees that smile, and he thinks that he could bare any kind of flower, any kind of pain, if he can see that smile. If he can love that smile. He doesn't care if this involves crying.

"I prefer roses, you know? It would have been nicer. The typical flower of love. And instead," Kevin lowers his head, almost laughing "Anemone. Who has ever heard about an anemone? But now it is in me."

Jacob doesn't know that Kevin is not speaking throught metaphors, so he just nods and adjusts Kevin's hair on his forehead. He delicately wipes his tears off with a sleeve, repeats once again how in reality anemones are beautiful, so pure, as they remind him of the sea and the summer, that they'll spend it together, as always.

"I'd like to keep one in my room."

"Of anemone?"

"Yes. They smell nice." Kevin nods bitterly, he thinks about the scent that until tomorrow will live in his body, the thinks about that flower that lives in his lungs. Ironically, he will miss that scent, so he plans to get one soon. Or at least, he hopes to remember his desire in wanting to buy one.  
"I will buy one for you." Jacob hugs him as if he was hugging something extremely frail, as if he was hugging a snowflake. "And I will put it here."

  
The next day, the first one to enter the hospital is Jacob. He has some flowers in his hands: anemones.

  
Kevin tries not to stare at him. In some hours he'll forget everything. He's trying not to think about it, he's scared of changing his mind, he's scared of suddendly screaming that he loves him, he's scared of realizing that he's making a mistake. He's scared.  
He closes his eyes, leans on the cot, leaves to Jaehyun the task of speaking with the doctors.  
He doesn't want to know what kind of surgery he will have, he doesn't want to know what will happen. He'll stay silent until the surgery ends: and then everything will be back to normal, with the same Kevin that studies, writes poetry, and doodles in each book.  
Kevin's mind goes to Chanhee, that endured everything alone, then to Changmin, that will never know about Younghoon, his mind goes to everyone that one day coughed out petals and found a flower in their life.  
But Kevin's flower wasn't the anemone, no, Kevin's flower was Jacob himself. It will be anemone from tomorrow.

"Aren't you afraid?" Jacob puts a hand on his forehead and keeps the flower with the other one, _"aren't you scared of forgetting_?"

Kevin suddenly turns. "Excuse me?"

"Eric told me. Hanahaki, is this right?"

Kevin is frozen in his cot. He doesn't know what to say. Eric. Why? Eric, that never spoke, abruptly says everything. If Kevin will remember, he will scold him. But now the cards are turned, he can't run away. He's preparing himself a speech, for when Jacob continues.

"So, with who were you in love?"

Ah. So Eric only spoke about the desease. Well, yes, a reason for Kevin's hospitalization was needed, but he could also invent something. He could invent as Kevin invents, now, a random girl name. He's not able of meeting Jacob's fixed stare.

_"Ah_," Jacob's voice slowly falls, "-**_I was wondering if it could have been me."_**

Kevin's heart seems to fall, to die, to stop. The flower dissolves into petals in his lungs and it hurts, it fucking hurts. So it was like this. So it wasn't unrequited. It was just unknown.  
If only Kevin could, if he could stop the doctors that are now bringing him into the operating room, he would. If only he could scream "yes, it's you", he would. If only he could turn back time, he would bear any kind of pain.  
If only he spoke before, he wouldn't have now a doctor that is injecting the anesthetic in his arm. Kevin wants to cry for the last time, but he can't, so he just suffers without tears, he cries silent with himself.  
How many "if only" there are on his mind, how many, as many as the petals of an anemone. That hurted in his chest, but is hurting even more now that it's gone.

  
It's too late now, isn't it?

Jacob waits outside the operating room, with a lot of questions in his mind that soon won't have sense, a lot of questions that Kevin won't understand.  
But it's fine, Jacob thinks that if Kevin forgets now his feelings for that girl, maybe in the future he could fall in love with him.

"Do you think I could have a chance with him when he exits the operation room?" Jacob shyly smiles, patting Eric's shoulder. And then he can't bear it anymore. Eric lowers his head, chokes a sob, leaning on Jaehyun's shoulder. He doesn't answer. He can't.  
There's only silence in the waiting room. And they wait. Anemone.

  
This silent waiting breaks when Jacob, softly, coughs. Eric and Jaehyun look up at something that is slowly falling on the floor.

  
_A rose petal._

**Author's Note:**

> i'm SO SORRY but please don't hate me i love y'all so much and as always i'm sorry for any mistake but english is not my first language sob sob


End file.
